Fuchs & Bach from Einsiedeln Abbey &: Mozart for bass! Easter concerts SOKS

Between late romanticism and early classical music: Robert Fuchs, Johann Christian Bach from Einsiedeln Abbey & Mozart for bass!

For over 20 years, the cantonal symphony orchestra has been bringing "great" works of classical music to halls and churches in the canton of Schwyz and the surrounding area. Depending on the line-up, 40 to 80 professional musicians, music students and enthusiastic amateur musicians realize three to four concert sessions a year with their conductor Urs Bamert. The SOKS has made an excellent name for itself with innovative, high-quality programs that attract audiences, over 70 projects and almost 200 performances - as an important cultural institution, cultural mediator and promoter of young local musicians.

The section leaders are professional musicians living in the region who work as musicians and music teachers, with the well-known Altendorf violinist Donat Nussbaumer from the Zurich Chamber Orchestra as concertmaster. In addition to "normal" concerts, the palmarès includes projects for the promotion of young people throughout the canton, encounters with youth orchestras from the canton and young Roma musicians from Hungary, yodeling clubs, "children's" and "commented concerts", the New Year's concerts and "Klassik am See" in Lachen. In addition, there are operas produced and staged entirely in-house with Swiss director Barbara Schlumpf, which have been extremely well received by audiences and experts alike: "OPERA ON TRAVEL" with Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte", Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" and, most recently, Verdi's famous "Traviata", which sold out!

Swiss and Schwyz composers such as Waespi, Schoeck, Raff and Martin are also among the composers performed - a selection of works and large ensembles that you would expect to find in the big concert halls of the cities, from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Dvorak and Mahler through to Debussy, Ravel, Kodaly, Gershwin, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Shostakovich - not forgetting modernism with Langgaard, Poulenc, Caspar Diethelm and Jimmy Lopez.

At Easter, the SOKS will once again be playing mainly in its string section, with a wonderful serenade by the little-known Austrian Romantic composer Robert Fuchs, teacher of Mahler and Sibelius. The guest soloist is the German bass Bastian Kohl, who lives in Tuggen and is the initiator of the Lachner "Klassik am See". He sings regularly at La Scala in Milan and at the Opéra Bastille in Paris - with SOKS he "lives out" 3 famous bass arias by Mozart, from "The Magic Flute", "Don Giovanni" and "The Abduction"!

In addition, there is another discovery "with a lot of drive" from the largest private music library in Switzerland, that of the Einsiedeln monastery. Only there are surviving copies of symphonies by Bach's youngest son, Johann Christian Bach, who is known to have worked in Milan around 1760 and with whom the monastery had connections via its branch in Bellinzona. After Easter and Advent 2024, the SOKS conductor has prepared another work that has only survived as a copy in Einsiedeln and edited it in modern notation - probably a world premiere for modern times! This should interest the music world all over the world and continue to carry the name Einsiedeln out into the world!

Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, 5.15 pm, Einsiedeln, Youth Church
Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, 5 p.m., Altendorf, parish church

Doors open 60 min., concert introduction 45 min. before the concerts (duration approx. 20 min.)

Robert Fuchs: Serenade No. 1 for strings
Johann Christian Bach: Symphony ("Ouverteur") in C major, Music Library Einsiedeln Monastery 678-22
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: 3 famous opera arias for bass and orchestra, from "The Magic Flute", "Don Giovanni" and "Abduction from the Seraglio"

The concerts are made possible by the generous support of our partners, global sponsors and soloist patrons:
Cultural Commission Canton Schwyz, Asuera Foundation, Markant AG (Pfäffikon SZ), Octapharma Foundation (Glarus), Renate Häusler & Oswald Grübel (Wollerau)

Further thanks go to (as at 27.03.2025):
Main benefactors/sponsors:
District of Höfe, Kühne Foundation, Private Cultural Foundation Einsiedeln

Sponsors:
Municipalities of Altendorf and Freienbach, Genossame Lachen, anonymous foundation, Schwyzer Kantonalbank, Lorenz Ilg (Bäch)

Patrons:
Districts of Einsiedeln and March, Municipality of Lachen, Ursimone Wietlisbach Foundation, Carl & Elise Elsener-Gut Stiftung/Victorinox AG (Ibach), Migros Kulturprozent Genossenschaft Migros Zürich, Einsiedeln Tourismus/Casino Pfäffikon, Multimotor Garage AG (Siebnen), Regula Bibus-Waser (Altendorf), Daniel Heini (Wollerau), Klemens Hörner (Reichenburg), Dr. Guido Schätti (Pfäffikon SZ), Rita & Gottfried Weber-Lehn (Arth)

Patrons:
Kadema Immobilien AG (Einsiedeln), Migrolino AG (Suhr AG), Remo Wüst Bäckerei + Konditorei AG (Wangen SZ), Rigi Bahnen AG (Vitznau), Rotenfluebahn Mythenregion AG (Rickenbach SZ), Schiffahrtsgesellschaft Vierwaldstättersee (Lucerne)

Media patronage: Bote der Urschweiz, Einsiedler Anzeiger, Freier Schweizer, Höfner Volksblatt/March-Anzeiger, Linth-Zeitung


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.

Concert introduction (approx. 20min) at 16.30 hrs.